History Characters / Warhammer40000CurrentImperialFactions

* IntrepidMerchant: Rogue Traders need to be proactive about their business to remain afloat, and few stick to stable trade routs in Imperial heartlands. Consequently, typical Rogue Traders spend a great deal of their time charting out new trade routes, exploring astral wildernesses, or searching for new planets to contact or ancient ruins to plunder, and often push entirely outside of Imperial-controlled or even mapped space in their search for new profits.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: The Shield-Captains of the Adeptus Custodes are considered to be some of the greatest warriors of the Imperium, able to stand alone against entire squads of elite enemy troops. Even more powerful than the Shield-Captains are the Captain-Generals who lead the Ten Thousand. Each of these mighty individuals has shown truly exceptional combat prowess and are said to be close to the Primarchs in skill and ability. In-game this is represented by both Shield-Captains, and the Captain-General, having exceptional stat lines in all the editions they have appeared in.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: The High Monarchs and Barons who lead contingents of Knights into battle are often supremely skilled combatants with battle honours that can take hours, if not days, to recite in full. In some editions of the game, the Warlord of an Imperial Knights army has better characteristics than his followers.

The Officio Assassinorum (Office of Assassins) is one of the Imperium's most closely guarded secrets. Founded during the Great Crusade to remove threats to the Emperor's plans that the Master of Mankind could not be seen to move openly against, the Officio in its current form was official sanctioned in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy. Based on Holy Terra itself, the Officio Assassinorum is organised into a series of temples, each one dedicated to a particular murderous art. There are many Temples of the Assassins in the service of the Imperium, the largest and most famous[[note]]and the only ones with a presence in the TabletopGame[[/note]] of which are the shapeshifting Callidus, the soulless Culexus, the berserker Eversor and the sniper Vindicare. Other, lesser temples include the propagandist Vanus, the poison masters of the Venenum and the disbanded Maerorus. No matter their particular style, however, the operatives of the Officio Assassinorum eliminate their targets, be they xenos, heretical or Imperial, with cold proficiency.

* AbsurdlyExclusiveRecruitingStandards: They take recruits from the elite students of the Schola Progenium, and only from those who show too much killing potential to become Commissars or Inquisitors. Training begins with the journey to their Assassinorum Temple, during which they're pitted against each other in the hold of the ship in competition for a limited supply of food and air, all while they're subjected to random extremes of gravity and temperature. By the end of the journey, recruit population has been reduced to a ''tenth'' of their numbers, ''' ''if they're lucky'' ''' - and it's not unknown for the survivors to be executed anyway if they haven't impressed their instructors during the journey. The training only gets even deadlier from there, often whittling down the students to one or two graduates... but considering that the assassins that emerge include unimaginably precise {{Cold Sniper}}s, [[ShapeshiftingTrickster shapeshifting infiltrators]] with a gift for the KillAndReplace, berserk {{Human Weapon}}s capable of [[OneManArmy destroying entire armies]], and terrifying {{Brown Note Being}}s that shut down enemy psykers through presence alone, the Officio Assassinorum definitely makes this trope ''work.''

* BrainComputerInterface: Vanus Assassins are equipped with specialized augmetics that increase their brains' ability to absorb data, essentially turning them into human computers.

* MasterPoisoner: While many Assassins utilise a variety of poisons and toxins on their missions, operatives of the Venenum Temple are the true masters of the art. One piece of FlavorText details the successful Assassination of all thousand members of an anti-Imperial planetary government by the Venenum Assassin Urua Thereaux who spent three days poisoning the chairs of their council chamber.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Rogue Traders]]
Rogue Traders are merchant-lords who occupy an unusual position in Imperial society, as they technically exist entirely outside of its normal hierarchies. Each possesses a Warrant of Trade, an ancient and priceless legal document drafted and signed by ancient Imperial founders, usually Primarchs or other leaders of the Great Crusade -- some even by the Emperor himself -- which grants its owner immense freedom and independence from normal Imperial oversight and restrictions, including the ability to leave Imperial territory and to contact independent human and alien civilizations, as long as they advance the Imperium's interests in some manner. In practice, Rogue Traders act as a cross between merchants, explorers and conquistadors, pushing out far beyond Imperial territory in search of new resources, treasures, and worlds, and are typically motivated by their own greed as much as or more as they are by the desire to serve the Imperium.

* CorporateWarfare: A Rogue Trader house is effectively a multiple star-spanning MegaCorp unto itself. When massive profits are at stake and they are well outside of Imperial jurisdiction, violence between houses can get as ugly as any war, if not typically at the same scale as the setting's other conflicts.
* Fiction500: Rogue Traders have access to the amassed wealth of centuries-old interplanetary trade dynasties, and can easily purchase things like centuries-old PoweredArmor, [[PrivateMilitaryContractors private mercenary armies]], or [[CoolStarship starships that cost more than a small planet]].
* IntrepidMerchant: Rogue Traders need to be proactive about their business to remain afloat, and few stick to stable trade routs in Imperial heartlands. Consequently, typical Rogue Traders spend a great deal of their time charting out new trade routes, exploring astral wildernesses, or searching for new planets to contact or ancient ruins to plunder, and often push entirely outside of Imperial-controlled or even mapped space in their search for new profits.
* MerchantPrince: Rogue Traders are aristocratic merchants given a very great deal of independence and authority by the Imperium of Man, including the ability to contact and trade with alien civilizations. Their status is hereditary, allowing long dynasties to form, and they're legally considered to hold a status equivalent to that of Space Marine Chapter Masters, Inquisitors and planetary governors.
* StarshipLuxurious: Rogue Traders' starships are notorious for their opulence, even among the elaborately decorated ships the Imperium favors. Their features can include vaulted ceilings, barracks for entire regiments of ground troops, room-sized techno-pipe organs, gladiatorial arenas, factories, and full-size churches to the God-Emperor, some of which can detach from the ship proper and be air-dropped as prefab cathedrals on worlds in need of converting.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Sisters of Silence]]
[[quoteright:275:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_silence.png]]

->''Fools may call these women abominations, hags, and freaks. Only the wise know the Sisters as the bravest of all Humanity's saviours -- they who battle Chaos itself.''
-->-- '''Inquisitor D'Maros'''

A mysterious organisation of warrior-women, sometimes seen as part of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, the Sisters of Silence are one of the Imperium's greatest weapons against the threat posed by psykers. Founded and organised by the Emperor himself, the Silent Sisterhood is composed entirely of women who possess the Pariah gene, making them the bane of those who practice the psychic arts as their mere presence can dampen and dispel powerful psychic abilities. The Sisters of Silence took part in many of the greatest battles of the Horus Heresy, such as the assault on Prospero and the Siege of Terra, but in the aftermath of that tumultuous era, the few surviving Sisters were left scattered and isolated. It wasn’t until the resurrection of Roboute Guilliman that the Sisters of Silence began to take a more active role in Imperial affairs once again, including aiding the Primarch in his fight against the Daemon Primarch Magnus the Red on Luna. After retaking his role as Lord Commander of the Imperium, Guilliman issued the Dispensatus Anathema that recalled the Null-Maidens to Terra, where they were organised into new Vigils and joined the Indomitus Crusade to assist with the relief of the Imperium following the opening of the Great Rift. As the Indomitus Crusade advances across the war-torn Imperium, isolated groups of Null-Maidens have been brought discovered and more Vigils formed so that they can continue to defend the Imperium against any and all psychic threats.

Like the Adeptus Custodes, the Sisters of Silence first received rules and models in the ''Horus Heresy: Burning of Prospero'' [[GaidenGame board game]] and in March 2017, they received an official mini codex in the 7th Edition ''Talons of the Emperor'' box set. The rules for the Sisters of Silence in 8th Edition were included in the ''Index: Imperium 2'' book that was released in June 2017 before being updated in the ''Index Imperialis: Sisters of Silence'' article in the October 2019 issue of ''Magazine/WhiteDwarf''.

* AmazonBrigade: The Silent Sisterhood are one of the oldest all-female organisations within the Imperium, with a history that stretches back for many millennia. As with much of their origin, the reason for them only recruiting female [[AntiMagic Blanks]] is unknown, but there are rumours of entire secret bloodlines of Blanks that provide recruits for the Sisters of Silence.
* AntiMagic: The Sister of Silence are an organisation consisting entirely of Blanks, beings that have a negative warp presence. The mere presence of a Blank makes psykers acutely uncomfortable, even causing actual pain, and their psychic abilities are dampened or even shut down. All versions of the 8th Edition rules represent this with the Psychic Abomination ability that renders all Sisters of Silence immune to {{psychic power}}s and makes it more difficult for enemy psykers to manifest or [[CounterSpell deny]] powers.
* {{BFS}}: Null-Maidens that fight as part of [[CloseRangeCombatant Vigilator Squads]] are armed with executioner greatblades, two-handed swords as long as the Sister wielding them is tall, that are capable of cleaving through flesh and armour with equal ease. This is represented in the 8th Edition rules by the greatblade boosting the Strength of the wielder and hiving high stats for both Armour Penetration and Damage.
* BlingOfWar: The Null-Maidens of the Silent Sisterhood traditionally wear the highly ornate, golden Vratine power armour associated with the direct servants of the Emperor and many Vigils, such as the Vigil Indomitus, still wear armour of similar colouring. Those Vigils that have developed their own colour schemes continue to wear ornately crafted armour, however, often with trims and decorations in precious metals.
* ElectiveMute: When fully inducted into the Sisterhood, the new Null-Maiden must take a vow of silence called the Oath of Tranquillity, something visually reflected by their armour covering their faces below the eyes. Amongst themselves the Null-Maidens of the Silent Sisterhood communicate mainly through various forms of [[HandSignals sign language]].
* GunsAkimbo: Some rare [[LongRangeFighter Prosecutor Squads]] have been known to exchange their boltguns from paired bolt pistols, particularly when fighting in close terrain where the higher number of shots that two pistols can unleash is more useful than the range of the bolter.
* HandSignals: The Sisters of Silence communicate between themselves with their own unique and complex sign language called Thoughtmark. There are a number of different forms of Thoughtmark, such as the simplified Battlemark, and most Null-Maidens also train in other forms of sign language, such as the battlefield signs used by various Chapters of the [[SuperSoldier Adeptus Astartes]].
* HeroWorshipper: The novel ''Dark Imperium'' mentions that, as with many within the Imperium, some Sisters revere the resurrected Primarch Roboute Guilliman as a living saint, something the Lord Commander of the Imperium finds uncomfortably shocking.
* HoverTank: As with the Adeptus Custodes, the Silent Sisterhood have access to technology unavailable to other branches of the Imperium and have been known to field grav-tanks such as anti-gravity versions of the [[AwesomePersonnelCarrier Rhino Transport]], as well as the rare and sinister Kharon Pattern Acquisitor.
* MageKiller: It is the role of the Sisters of Silence to hunt down and eliminate the greatest psychic threats that the Imperium faces. They are highly trained in the elimination of those who use PsychicPowers and are equipped with special anti-psyker weaponry. The 8th Edition rules represent this specialisation by giving every Sister of Silence psyk-out grenades (which have a chance of dealing [[UnblockableAttack mortal wounds]] against psykers and Daemons) and the Witch Hunters special rule (allowing them to re-roll wound rolls against psykers they are fighting). The rank and file [[LongRangeFighter Prosecutor Sisters]] are also able to ignore the usual targeting restrictions when firing at psychic characters.
* VoiceForTheVoiceless: When members of the Silent Sisterhood have to communicate with outsiders, they will often be accompanied by a Proloquor, a novice Sister who hasn't yet taken the Vow of Tranquility, who will translate the Sisterhood's unique sign language.

* AxCrazy: [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] - Temple Eversor actively looks for mentally unstable individuals such as [[TheSociopath sociopaths]] or psychotic murderers to train, as they take much more easily to the Temple's method of assassination than others. The combat drugs just make them ever more so.

* MyGreatestFailure: The Custodes still feel intense guilt over their perceived failure to protect the Emperor over 10,000 years ago. Their reluctance to leave the palace for much of that time period stems from this guilt.

* SuperPrototype: Of the Space Marines, only the Primarchs are more powerful than the Custodes.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: When the Paternova dies, the Heirs Apparent (the most powerful Navigators of each house) become larger, stronger, and more aggressive. They then fight and kill each other for the right of Paternova.

* DyingRace: Ratling populations have suffered greatly due to Tyranid invasions of their worlds.

* BunnyEarsLawyer: The Imperial Guardsmen they serve with generally take a dim view of these diminutive, greedy, thieving, lecherous, cowardly weaklings that would lose to ''T'au'' in hand-to-hand combat, but the Astra Militarum tolerates these flaws for the potential as excellent snipers, scouts and even cooks.

* {{Hobbits}}: Like Tolkien's hobbits, Ratlings are very short, compactly built, and tend to be portrayed with large, hirsute feet. They also love food, both the making and the eating.

* {{Expy}}: Navigators are a pretty transparent shout to ''{{Literature/Dune}}''[='s=] Guild Navigators, fulfilling both the same societal function (careful maneuver of huge starships through the dangers of interstellar space) and also in their post-human mutations, though Guild Navigators come by this as a result of spice exposure as opposed to Nobilite navigators' genetic manipulation.

* BunnyEarsLawyer: Ogryns may be too dumb to use any weaponry that isn’t specifically made for them, [[ThePigPen incapable of basic hygiene]], generally unable to comprehend orders any much more complex than "Move/stay there" and "Kill it!", and too claustrophobic to ride inside of armored fighting vehicles, but their near-unparalleled strength, fortitude and loyalty (outstripping even Space Marines) makes them valuable troops for close-combat in the Astra Militarum’s neverending battle across the stars.

Rogue Traders are merchant-lords who occupy an unusual position in Imperial society, as they technically exist entirely outside of its normal hierarchies. Each possess a Warrant of Trade, an ancient and priceless legal document drafted and signed by ancient Imperial founders, usually Primarchs or other leaders of the Great Crusade -- some even by the Emperor himself -- which grants its owner immense freedom and independence from normal Imperial oversight and restrictions, including the ability to leave Imperial territory and to contact independent human and alien civilizations, as long as they advance the Imperium's interests in some manner. In practice, Rogue Traders act as a cross between merchants, explorers and conquistadors, pushing out far beyond Imperial territory in search of new resources, treasures, and worlds, and are typically motivated by their own greed as much as or more as they are by the desire to serve the Imperium.

* CorporateWarfare: A Rogue Trader house is effectively a multiple star-spanning MegaCorp unto itself, and, when massive profits are at stake and they are well outside of Imperial jurisdiction, violence between houses can get as ugly as any war, if not typically at the same scale as the setting's other conflicts.

* IntrepidMerchant: Rogue Traders need to be proactive about their business to remain afloat, and few stick to stable trade routs in Imperial heartlands. Consequently, typical Rogue Traders spend a great deal of their charting out new trade routes, exploring astral wildernesses, or searching for new planets to contact or ancient ruins to plunder, and often push entirely out Imperial-controlled or even mapped space in their search for new profits.
* MerchantPrince: Rogue Traders are aristocratic merchants given a very great deal independence and authority by the Imperium of Man, including the ability to contact and trade with alien civilizations. Their status is hereditary, allowing long dynasties to form, and they're legally considered to hold a status equivalent to that of SpaceMarine Chapter Masters, Inquisitors and planetary governors.

A mysterious organisation of warrior-women, sometimes seen as part of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, the Sisters of Silence are one of the Imperium's greatest weapons against the threat posed by psykers. Founded and organised by the Emperor himself, the Silent Sisterhood is composed entirely of women who possess the Pariah gene, making them the bane of those who practice the psychic arts as their mere presence can dampen and dispel powerful psychic abilities. The Sisters of Silence took part in many of the greatest battles of the Horus Heresy, such as the assault on Prospero and the Siege of Terra, but in the aftermath of that tumultuous era many of the few surviving Sisters were left scattered and isolated. It wasn’t until the resurrection of Roboute Guilliman that the Sisters of Silence began to take a more active role in Imperial affairs once again, including aiding the Primarch in his fight against the Daemon Primarch Magnus the Red on Luna. After retaking his role as Lord Commander of the Imperium, Guilliman issued the Dispensatus Anathema that recalled the Null-Maidens to Terra, where they were organised into new Vigils and joined the Indomitus Crusade to assist with the relief of the Imperium following the opening of the Great rift. As the Indomitus Crusade advances across the war-torn Imperium isolated groups of Null-Maidens have been brought discovered and more Vigils so that they can continue to defend the Imperium against any and all psychic threats.

* AmazonBrigade: The Silent Sisterhood are one of the oldest all-female organisations within the Imperium, with a history that stretches back for many millennia. As with much of their origin, the reason for them only recruiting female [[AntiMagic Blanks]] is unknown but there are rumours of entire secret bloodlines of Blanks that provide recruits for the Sisters of Silence.

* MageKiller: It is the role of the Sisters of Silence to hunt down and eliminate the greatest psychic threats that the Imperium faces. The Null-Maidens of the Silent Sisterhood are highly trained in the elimination of those who use PsychicPowers and are equipped with special anti-psyker weaponry. The 8th Edition rules represent this specialisation by giving every Sister of Silence psyk-out grenades (which have a chance of dealing [[UnblockableAttack mortal wounds]] against psykers and Daemons) and the Witch Hunters special rule (allowing them to re-roll wound rolls against psykers they are fighting). The rank and file [[LongRangeFighter Prosecutor Sisters]] are also able to ignore the usual targeting restrictions when firing at psychic characters.
* VoiceForTheVoiceless: When members of the Silent Sisterhood have to communicate with outsiders, they will often be accompanied by a Proloquor, a novice Sister who hasn't yet taken the Vow of Tranquility, who will translate the Sisterhood’s unique sign language.

* CatFolk: Felinids, ''Homo sapiens hirsutus'', literally "hairy humans", are an obscure strain of abhuman mentioned only twice in the franchise, both times offhandedly. Their second mention, in 2021's ''Liber Xenologis'', has the author dismiss their existence as a fanciful rumor, the only semi-credible evidence he can find being a Kroot mercenary who claims to have fought them (though judging by his description, it's possible he was simply referring to the Catachan Jungle Fighters).

* CatFolk: Felinids, ''Homo sapiens hirsutus'', literally "hairy humans", are an obscure strain of abhuman noted only to be ruthless and efficient killers.

* AnAxeToGrind: Some of them (mostly the Allarus Custodes) get to use the Castellan Axe, which is effectively a Guardian Spear that is better-suited to slashing.

** The [[AnAxeToGrind Castellan Axe]] works like a Guardian Spear that's specialized for slashing, and is often seen in the hands of the [[BloodKnight Allarus Custodians]]. Trajann Valoris's Watcher's Axe also fits in this category, only bigger and fancier.

* MixAndMatchWeapon: Valoris wields the [[NamedWeapon Watcher’s Axe]], a large polearm that combines an Aquila-decorated [[AnAxeToGrind axeblade]] wreathed in golden lightning with the Eagle’s Scream, a masterfully forged bolt weapon with a punishing rate of fire that unleashes armour-piercing Penetrator bolts. In the 8th Edition rules, this revered weapon has the most powerful stats for any of the Custodes mix-and-match weapons.

* {{Expy}}: Navigators are a pretty transparent shout to ''[[{{Literature/Dune}} Dune]]'s'' Guild Navigators, fulfilling both the same societal function (careful maneuver of huge starships through the dangers of interstellar space) and also in their post-human mutations, though Guild Navigators come by this as a result of spice exposure as opposed to Nobilite navigators' genetic manipulation

* {{Expy}}: Navigators are pretty transparently a shout to ''[[{{Literature/Dune}} Dune]]'s'' Guild Navigators, fulfilling both the same societal function (careful maneuver of huge starships through the dangers of interstellar space) and also in their post-human mutations, though Guild Navigators come by this as a result of spice exposure as opposed to Nobilite navigators' genetic manipulation

** This is taken up a notch with the Telemon Heavy Dreadnought. It's so big that it can mount the [[GatlingGood Arachnus Storm]] [[EnergyWeapon Cannon]] or the [[{{BFG}} Iliastus Accelerator Culverin]] in one arm, and a PowerFist with built-in weapons on the other.

[[folder:Leagues of Votann]]
[[quoteright:314:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hearthkyn_warrior.png]]
[[caption-width-right:314:A Hearthkyn Warrior of the Leagues of Votann]]
->''"We have always been a race of traders. It is natural to us that we should trade the fighting skills of our Brotherhoods. As well as bringing us a profit, it also allows our youngsters to gain experience and honour, and to keep alive the skills which our strongholds may one day need for their own defence."''

The Kin of the Leagues of Votann are the most influential and widespread of the abhuman strains, and the only one to be largely self-governing. Their technology is more advanced than the Imperium's, as they survived the Age of Strife in better shape than other human societies. Physically, the Kin differ from baseline Humanity in a number of aspects. Firstly and most notably, they're cloned rather than born -- new Kin are generated from the Cloneskeins, ancient databases of genetic data created by the near-mythical First Ancestors.\\

The Squats' ancient primogenitors also introduced a number of deliberate alterations: Kin are shorter and stockier than other humans, with denser bones and muscles, and have higher red and white blood cell counts than them as well. Their souls were also made dimmer than normal humans, making them more resistant to Warp-borne corruption at the cost of hamstringing their potential as psykers. Individual Cloneskeins also carry distinct traits that impart specific abilities and define a Kin's role in society, such as enhanced reaction times, the ability to see into the infrared spectrum, or resistance to environmental extremes. This often comes with outwardly visible markers, such as unusual body odors, eye colors, or skin growths.\\

The Leagues have a delicate relationship with the Imperium, which the Kin see as backwards and a poor successor the ancient human civilization, and primarily keep to their own worlds; a few occasionally find their way into the greater Imperium as mercenaries and emigrants, and are often mockingly referred to as "Squats". The Leagues are also, for all intents, their own sovereign government, and tied to the imperium by treaties rather than fealty, but the Imperium and the Leagues are allies more often than foes -- if only because of their many shared enemies. However, the Leagues keep many secrets from their distant relatives: the Kin's genetic alterations, the knowledge that the Votann -- the basis of Kin power -- are in fact sentient computers dating back to the Age of Technology, and the true, self-willed robots integrated into Kin society as full citizens -- all secrets that would cause problems with the AI- and mutation-averse Imperium...

* AIIsACrapshoot: {{Downplayed|Trope}}. The Votann that the Leagues of Votann worship and venerate as their ancestor-cores are extremely powerful [=AIs=] with vast sums of knowledge dating back to the Dark Age of Technology, but time has not been kind to them. Millennia worth of engrammatic degradation and structural damage to their machinery has rendered them far more impotent than they once were, with calculations they could've completed in hours when new now taking decades or centuries.
* AntiMagic: {{Downplayed|Trope}}; in their early history with genetic modification to make their Cloneskeins the Leagues also discovered a way to dim their souls, making them more resistant to Chaos corruption and less likely to be targeted by Daemons and other Warp Predators at the cost of stabbing their psychic potential in the foot. However, unlike the other dim-souled race of the setting, the T'au, there are rare Cloneskeins that can produce psykers known as Grimnyrs who form the priest caste of the Leagues and use their powers to communicate with the Votann and relay their directives.
* {{Berserker}}: The Leagues of Votann have their own Sci-Fi spin of berserkers that're distinct but similar to their [[Characters/WarhammerDwarfs fantasy]] [[Characters/WarhammerAgeOfSigmarGrandAllianceOrder counterparts]], called The Cthonian Beserks who are augmented workers of the mining guilds.
* TheBusCameBack: The Leagues' introduction marked the full return of the former Squats as a full faction since the days of ''Epic''.
* DesignerBabies: Due to the Leagues of Votann's use of mass cloning, they managed to genetically modify their race into what they are now. They did this with samples taken from their vast genepool to create clone templates called ''Cloneskeins'', these Cloneskeins are specifically engineered to create whatever type of Squat the Leagues of Votann may need at any given opportunity. However not all of these Cloneskeins are strictly practical, some are even designed for fashion or cultural indicators; these types of Cloneskeins can manifest in a multitude of ways and can vary from Squat to Squat.
* FunWithAcronyms:
** While it's not stated what the acronym stands for, the terminals used by Kin engineers to remotely control their holds' foundries are known as A.N-vyl terminals.
** Leagues weapons interface directly with their bearers' neural augmetics using haptic utility nerve transmission recalibrator modules -- [=HunTRs=] for short
* HigherTechSpecies: The Leagues retained a greater technological base during the collapse of the old human civilization, and as they don't share the Imperium's ban on innovation they have slowly but steadily worked on improving it since. As a result, the Leagues are flatly more advanced than the Imperium across the board -- even equivalent tools are more reliable and effective, and they retain a lot of technologies, such as ion weapons and true AI, long since lost to or suppressed by the Imperium.
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: The most common portrayal of the Kin and the Leagues leans towards this; they value good business and trading partners (hence why they maintain good connections with the T'au who buy their ion weaponry from the Leagues), and if something isn't going to imminently turn a profit for them they are far more reticent to commit to it.
* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: In comparison to the Imperium and ''especially'' the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Leagues of Votann are this.
** In contrast to the Imperium, they are not nearly as religious and hidebound in their ways of thinking and governing themselves, behaving much more like the human empires from the Dark Age of Technology that they descended from. They maintain stable relations with a few xeno polities like the T'au, don't have blanket bans on certain topics and subjects, and are aware enough of the corruptive power of Chaos to actively guard against it while simultaneously not feeding it with their emotions by dimming their own souls and generally leading the kind of lifestyles that Chaos can't get a good hook into.
** In contrast to the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Leagues of Votann are just flat-out more advanced technologically than the Martian priesthood because they actually innovate and modify their technology rather than endlessly copying it without retaining any knowledge on how its underlying machinery or technologies function. They also have no proscriptions on using AI to aid in their everyday lives, from the humble Ironkin who are treated as normal members of their society to the Votann themselves, nigh-godlike AI cores that are the focal point of their society and responsible for the Kin being what they are in the 42nd millennium. Any number of technologies and methodologies the Kin use would be decried as heresy by the Adeptus Mechanicus, which is why the Kin have rather cold relations with the priests of Mars because they [[GenreSavvy are well aware of what would happen should Mars catch a whiff of what they're up to.]]
* ModifiedClone: One of the First Truths of the Leagues of Votann is that their First Ancestors created them through a process of mass cloning. However, since the Cloneskeins contain a very extensive library of templates and are often tweaked to give resulting Kin specific abilities, there may never be a Squat who is exactly the same as another besides minor cultural markers.
* OurDwarvesAreDifferent: The Leagues are a space-age take on the dwarven archetype -- they're a HumanSubspecies marked by being stouter overall than baseline humans, with greater strength and resilience as a result of denser bones and musculature, and much more technologically adept and less superstitious than mainline human society.
* OurSoulsAreDifferent: While Kin have the same sorts of souls as other humans and abhumans, the Votann's experimentations with their genetics, their understanding of the soul's ties to the Warp, and a well-earned warriness about Chaos, gave the Votann reason to place a sort of genetic "shroud" over the Kin's souls that makes them far harder for Daemons or Warp predators to detect by diminishing its effective "luminosity" in the Empyrean. This has had the knock-on effect of hampering their psychic potential, but also meant that they didn't suffer nearly as much psychic backlash with the opening of the Great Rift.
* PlanetLooters: Not to the omnicidal degree of the Tyranids, but the Leagues ultimately view any resources found throughout the galactic core and elsewhere that they could make use of as being theirs by right of strength and willingness to take, for as the First Truth goes; "Luck Has. Need Keeps. Toil Earns." For the most part the Kin aren't monsters about this habit unlike the Tyranids or Chaos, and will sometimes even offer to evacuate people off of the world to be strip-mined, but should the current planetary occupants put up too much resistance then they'll simply bring some of the heavy equipment from the Cthonian Mining Guilds to bear, tearing the planet apart from orbit and sifting through the wreckage for the resources they want.
* PragmaticVillainy: At their worst the Leagues can be considered this; while they maintain decent enough relations with the Imperium and a few xeno polities like the T'au, the Kin are ultimately focused on their own survival at all costs. If that means refusing to aid one of their erstwhile allies because the cost of Kin blood and treasure will be too high, or even going on the offensive to annihilate a weak force that is sitting on a world or resource the Kin want, then so be it.
* PoweredArmor: Unlike the Imperium, power armour seems to be far more ubiquitous in the Leagues of Votann and with more expanded applications than just combat. As the Brôkhyr Thunderkyn have power-rigs designed for heavy lifting and numerous other engineering uses outside of combat. Though the more advanced power is always reserved by the elite Hearthguard who wear suits of Exo-armour, heavy armour comparable to suits of Imperial Terminator Armour.
* ReportsOfMyDeathWereGreatlyExaggerated: The initial reasoning for phasing the old Squat army out of the game and setting were that their homeworlds were in the path of Hive Fleet Leviathan and got eaten down to the last. As it would turn out on the reintroduction of the Kin into the setting, Leviathan only managed to consume a ''single'' League, the Emberg-Aegnir Bloc. While it was certainly devastating to the Bloc and resulted in their Votann being driven insane from trying to reabsorb all of the dead Kin to deny their biomass to the Tyranids, Imperial astrographers were ''quite'' off the mark when they assumed the Emberg-Aegnir Bloc constituted the whole of the Kin race.

!!Squats
[[quoteright:182:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/warhammer_40k_2nd_edition_squat_warrior_painted.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:182:A ''Rogue Trader''-era Squat soldier]]
->''"You people do well at war because you treat it as a religion. We do well because we treat it as a business. It is just a matter of outlook."''

The pre-9th Edition incarnation of this faction differed from its later iteration in a number of aspects. "Squats" was its official name, and instead of a race of clones they were the descendants of humans adapted over tens of millennia to a subterranean life on the high-gravity, irradiated worlds near the galactic core, thought to be one of the more populous abhumans in the galaxy. Militaristic and mercantile, the Squats have had contact with a number of xenos races, developing an intense enmity for the Orks while establishing more peaceful and beneficial relationships with some Eldar[[note]]what the Aeldari were know as at the time[[/note]] communities. Eventually, the Squats were rediscovered by and reabsorbed into the Imperium but were allowed a greater autonomy than some other abhuman strains as their tech fascinated the Adeptus Mechanicus and their military might made them a welcome addition to the Imperial armed forces.\\
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The Squats were popular in the Epic-scale game system, but never saw much use within the core game and did not fit very well in the increasingly GrimDark setting, having been introduced when the setting was a transparent [[RecycledInSpace In Space]] version of ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy''. Additionally, the game designers could never settle on an adequate theme for the army, and depictions of them wavered between goofy space dwarfs and miniature {{Badass Biker}}s. In 1994, they were discontinued with one game developer later claiming that the Tyranids had descended upon their Homeworlds and stripped them clean of all life. For a long time it was Games Workshop's official position that they wouldn't even be mentioned in the background material or on any of the official websites.\\
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This policy was eventually changed to making the Squats a background race. The novel ''Space Marine'', which includes an encounter with Squats, was not altered when it was reprinted, and the 6th and 7th edition rulebooks' appendices listing Squats as one of the main abhuman strains. In 2018, the Squats returned to the tabletop in the form of Grendl Grendlsen, a Hired Gun for the 3rd Edition of the GaidenGame ''TabletopGame/{{Necromunda}}''. Eventually, 2022 saw the reintroduction of the Squats in the form of their modern incarnation, the Leagues of Votann.
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'''[[Characters/Warhammer40000XenoRaces Xeno Races]]:''' [[Characters/Warhammer40000Eldar Aeldari]] ([[Characters/Warhammer40000CraftworldEldar Asuryani]], [[Characters/Warhammer40000DarkEldar Drukhari]]) | [[Characters/Warhammer40000Necrons Necrons]] | [[Characters/Warhammer40000Orks Orks]] ([[Characters/Warhammer40000OrksCharacters Characters]]) | [[Characters/Warhammer40000TauEmpire T'au Empire]] | [[Characters/Warhammer40000Tyranids Tyranids]]]]-]]]

* OnlyInItForThemoney: The most common portrayal of the Kin and the Leagues leans towards this; they value good business and trading partners (hence why they maintain good connections with the T'au who buy their ion weaponry from the Leagues), and if something isn't going to imminently turn a profit for them they are far more reticent to commit to it.
* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: In comparison to the Imperium and ''especially'' the Adeptus MEchanicus, the Leagues of Votann are this.

'''[[Characters/Warhammer40000XenoRaces Xeno Races]]:''' [[Characters/Warhammer40000Eldar Aeldari]] ([[Characters/Warhammer40000CraftworldEldar Asuryani]], [[Characters/Warhammer40000DarkEldar Drukhari]]) | [[Characters/Warhammer40000Necrons Necrons]] | [[Characters/Warhammer40000Orks Orks]] | [[Characters/Warhammer40000TauEmpire T'au Empire]] | [[Characters/Warhammer40000Tyranids Tyranids]]]]-]]]

* AntiMagic: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]]; in their early history with genetic modification to make their Cloneskeins the Leagues also discovered a way to dim their souls, making them more resistant to Chaos corruption and less likely to be targeted by Daemons and other Warp Predators at the cost of stabbing their psychic potential in the foot. However, unlike the other dim-souled race of the setting, the T'au, there are rare Cloneskeins that can produce psykers known as Grimnyrs who form the priest caste of the Leagues and use their powers to communicate with the Votann and relay their directives.

* AntiMagicFaction: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]]; in their early history with genetic modification to make their Cloneskeins the Leagues also discovered a way to dim their souls, making them more resistant to Chaos corruption and less likely to be targeted by Daemons and other Warp Predators at the cost of stabbing their psychic potential in the foot. However, unlike the other dim-souled race of the setting, the T'au, there are rare Cloneskeins that can produce psykers known as Grimnyrs who form the priest caste of the Leagues and use their powers to communicate with the Votann and relay their directives.